The present invention relates to a tablet packing apparatus and, more particularly, to a tablet packing apparatus having a function of cutting a tablet into halves for delivering it to a child patient or for the like purpose.
In the case that the patient is a child, if one tablet is prescribed for one dose, the dose is too much for the child. Therefore, if has been customary practice to cut the tablet into halves to prescribe one half of the tablet. In such a case, although it is common to manually divide the tablet into two parts, there has been proposed an arrangement such that one tablet is divided into halves by a tablet splitter (as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-7715, for example).
With manual cutting, however, there is disadvantages that operating efficiency is very poor, and that it is difficult to split the tablet accurately into halves.
Even when the tablet splitter is used, a tablet having no split line formed on the surface thereof can hardly be split accurately into halves. Furthermore, it is necessary that tablet splitting and subsequent packing must be separately carried out. This involves troublesome work, resulting in poor operating efficiency.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a tablet cutting apparatus which can precisely split a tablet into halves.
In order to accomplish the above object, a tablet cutting apparatus according to the present invention is provided and the tablet cutting apparatus, comprises:
a cutter for notching a tablet;
a receiver plate for supporting the tablet from bottom; and
a divider roller for dividing the tablet into two halves along the notch formed by the cutter, the tablet being held between the divider roller and the receiver plate.
In the tablet cutting apparatus having the above described construction, after notching the tablet by the cutter, the tablet is divided into two by the receiver plate and the divider roller, whereby the tablet is precisely split into halves.
Preferably, the tablet cutting apparatus may further comprise a transport portion for transporting the tablet at positions of the cutter and the receiver plate, and a tablet positioning portion for positioning the tablet at a predetermined position confronting the cutter. In this case, the tablet positioning portion may have inclined surfaces adapted to abut the tablet from opposite sides in rectangular relation to the direction of tablet transport in such a way as to press the tablet downward. The tablet positioning portion may include a solenoid for positioning the tablet at the predetermined position by protruding a plunger thereof from the inclined surface.
Preferably, the divider roller may be formed with an escape groove centrally of the outer periphery thereof so that the escape groove is opposed to the notch formed by the cutter, and the upper surface of the receiver plate may comprise a cylindrical surface with a curvature bulging upward.
Preferably, the tablet cutting apparatus may further comprise a cleaner device which includes a hood for covering the cutter and the divider roller from above, the cleaner device operates to suck powder that is generated from the tablet via the hood.
Preferably, the tablet cutting apparatus may further comprise a split guide plate for guiding split half tablets divided by the receiver plate and the divider roller to different places, respectively.
Preferably, the tablet cutting apparatus may further comprise a memory for storing a cutting condition according to the kind of tablet, and a controller for reading the cutting condition corresponding to the kind of the tablet to be cut from the memory and controlling operation of the cutter according to the cutting condition.